


buy me a doughnut

by fictionalportal



Series: 30 Days of Pride [14]
Category: Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 15:13:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11210700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictionalportal/pseuds/fictionalportal
Summary: a nice little angsty prompt from venicimo07:"Okay, because of the deleted scenes! Kimberly realized she kissed the wrong ranger immediately after it happened, but it was too late. Jason was understanding of the situation and realized who she's in love with after she told him about the locker scene. And Trini's face after she found out that Kim kissed Jason, the devastation that she tried to hide but Kimberly saw. Then Kim realizes, she'd do anything to turn back time and confide to the right person."In which Kimberly begs Trini to give her another chance.*I definitely recommend watching the deleted scenes from the digital release first, otherwise some of this won't make sense (there was a kiss between Jason and Kimberly that was cut from the film)





	buy me a doughnut

Exactly two seconds after Kimberly Hart kissed Jason Scott, she regretted it. She’d been caught off guard by the moment, shocked by that fact that he didn’t dismiss her as an awful person. She should have recognized that he was trying to be a leader, not pounced on him and flipped him onto his back.

What bothered her most about kissing Jason? It was something that the old Kimberly Hart would have done. Kimberly had become adept at utilizing physicality as a weapon to defend against anyone who tried to chip away at the walls that she’d built around herself. It worked wonders in her previous relationships, at least until Ty called her out for being closed off and using sex to distract him whenever he tried to talk to her about anything real or emotional.

Now Kimberly was stuck on a superhero team with Jason and three other people, and there would no doubt be repercussions that affected the team’s dynamic. With Rita lurking just over Angel Grove’s shoulder, they couldn’t afford any distractions.

As it turned out, they had less time than Kimberly thought before Rita initiated her attack. She and Jason hurried to the football field as soon as they saw Trini’s message. Seeing Trini bruised and bleeding in the bleachers snapped Kimberly back into reality, made her realize that all of this was actually happening. It wasn’t some bizarre dream. Trini had almost died, and no one had been there to help her. Kimberly had almost gone to Trini’s instead of Jason’s--could she have stopped Rita?

As they sprinted to the docks, Kimberly kept pace with Trini. “Are you alright? Stupid question,” Kimberly said, shaking her head and breathing hard.

“I’ll be fine,” Trini replied. “You got here fast.”

“I was worried.” It wasn’t a lie. After talking with Jason, though, she figured that their best chance at defeating Rita started with being honest with each other. She wasn’t going to continue being the reason that the team couldn’t morph and defend themselves against her. “I was also at Jason’s.”

Trini’s face was impossible to read.

“Not in like, a weird way,” Kimberly continued, nervous that Trini hadn’t said anything. “I kissed him for a second,” Kimberly admitted. “It didn’t mean anything, though.”

When Kimberly finally ran out of confessions, she looked at Trini, who barely glanced back. A small line appeared between Trini’s eyebrows.

“It didn’t mean anything, though,” Kimberly went on, praying that someone would duct tape her traitorous mouth shut. “That would completely ruin the dynamic of the team. You know?”

Kimberly saw Trini’s cracked facade crumble. “Yeah,” was all Trini said. She blinked a few times quickly and broke pace with Kimberly to run ahead. Kimberly didn’t try to catch her.

When they got to the docks, Kimberly nearly tripped over a rope--she couldn’t bring herself to stop looking at Trini, who was suddenly very focused on twirling a piece of pipe in her hand. Kimberly had driven a wrecking ball through whatever closeness she’d built with Trini--worse, she’d destroyed their chances of morphing. No doubt the other Rangers could feel that something was off-kilter.

After everything went wrong at the docks and Billy died, they somehow managed to morph. Kimberly forgot about all of the mistake she had made in past month, the past few hours. None of that was important with Billy gone.

And then Zordon brought Billy back, and Trini slapped Rita into space, and Kimberly had no choice but to pay attention to the feelings and thoughts that had been swarming in the back of her head during the battle for Angel Grove.

She had to talk to Jason.

***

None of the Power Rangers had used a front door since discovering that they could jump twenty feet in the air. Windows were their preferred method of entry into each other’s rooms, and Kimberly perched outside of Jason's until he entered his room. She spent her twenty minutes on the windowsill estimating how many leaves were left on each of the red and orange trees in his yard.

When Jason finally opened his door, he was wearing a towel and his hair was wet. Kimberly panicked and averted her gaze, hoping that he wouldn’t notice her until he was at least wearing pants. A minute later, she felt the glass next to arm move.

“Kimberly?” Jason, fully clothed, popped his head through the window. “...How long have you been out here?”

“I didn’t see anything, I promise,” Kimberly said, swinging her legs into his room.

“By all means, come in,” Jason teased. “What’s up?”

“I owe you an apology.”

“For...what?” He looked genuinely confused. “You’re not a bad kisser, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Kimberly closed her eyes in an effort to shove the memory of kissing him out of her head for good. “Jason, seriously.”

“Seriously, you’re not bad,” he said.

She almost started yelling at him, but she closed her mouth, took a deep breath, and continued. “I don’t--I can’t--we can’t--” She felt tears spring up. So much for maintaining her cool. Another deep breath. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to say this without--” _without hurting you_ , she thought. Jason had quickly become someone whom she trusted more than just about anyone, and she couldn’t lose that friendship.

Jason put his hands on her arms. “Hey, look at me,” he said. “I get it.”

“What?” Kimberly said, brushing his hands away so that she could wipe the tears off her cheeks. “You do?”

“Of course. I really shouldn’t have encouraged it. You were way too vulnerable and upset and we both made a mistake.”

Kimberly blinked at him. This was going much better than she could have anticipated.

“Plus, it wouldn’t be good for the team.”

“Right,” she agreed. “Totally.” Kimberly pictured Trini’s face right after she herself had said those same words. She had looked...heartbroken.

Oh.

Heartbroken. Exactly how Kimberly had felt when she saw Trini right after her brutal encounter with Rita. Heartbroken, just like Kimberly had been when Trini had questioned whether their connection was just because of some magic rocks. Heartbroken, like Kimberly when she’d watched Trini try to walk away from all of it on that first day after the van accident.

“I mean, I’m the Red Ranger,” Jason started, jolting Kimberly out of her epiphany. “I’m way out of your league,” he joked with a cocky smile.

Kimberly looked up at him while new tears tumbled.

“Whoa, Kim, I was kidding.”

“No, I just realized--” she cut herself off.

“That you kissed the wrong Ranger?” He offered. “I think there’s somebody else you should be apologizing to.”

Kimberly’s eyes went wide. “But you just said--”

“As team leader, I’m ordering you to go talk to Trini,” Jason said firmly.

Kimberly nodded slowly. She could reprimand herself for being oblivious later (and interrogate Jason as to how exactly he picked up on Kimberly’s feelings for Trini before she herself did).

***

As soon as Kimberly spotted Trini sitting atop her favorite cliffside, her jog up the mountain turned into a sprint. She slowed down when she neared the top in an attempt to preserve some semblance of calm. “Thought I might find you up here,” she projected.

Trini whipped her head around, startled by the intrusion. She turned away when she saw Kimberly and gave her full attention to a pile of uprooted grass.

Kimberly kept her distance and started in on the speech that she’d rehearsed the entire way to the mine. “I have to talk to you about right before we went to the docks. I was trying to be honest, but I wasn’t.”

“Solid start,” Trini said venomously. She pitched a handful of grass over the edge.

“I was so worried that we wouldn’t be able to morph. I kept things from all of you, but I think I kept some things from myself, too.”

Trini cast her a sideways glance that clearly indicated that she was not impressed. “Can you skip to whatever point you’re trying to make?”

“You’ve done nothing but have my back since all this started. And when you needed help, I wasn’t there. And I am so sorry. You’re an amazing teammate and an amazing friend and I’m so glad that I met you.”

Trini snorted. “Yeah, okay, Kim.” She threw the rock over the side of the cliff.

“Trini,” Kimberly said, pushing through the ten-foot chasm between them to kneel down next to her. Her speech script had run out, and now she had no choice but to speak straight from the heart. “I really wanted to talk to you after the bonfire, but I was afraid that if I told you about some of the things I’ve done that you’d hate me.”

Trini finally made eye contact.

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am for this whole mess,” Kimberly said. As worried as she’d been about losing Jason, the possibility that she might lose Trini was infinitely more alarming. Every plea felt more urgent than the last. “All I can ask is for you to give me another chance.”

Trini stared into her. “And why should I?” Her voice bristled bitterly.

“I think I love you,” Kimberly whispered, the words tumbling out before she could even think them. “And I’m pretty sure you do hate me right now, and I--” Trini was looking at her like Kimberly had just sprouted horns. “What?”

“You seriously think I could ever hate you?” Trini said, the accusatory sharpness in her tone gone.

Kimberly pressed on. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did. I couldn’t protect you or Billy from Rita, I kissed Jason, I--”

“Pushed me off a cliff,” Trini said, a note of levity inflecting the reminder.

“Exactly!” Kimberly agreed. She couldn’t help but laugh as she felt the tension that she’d been carrying for weeks melt out of her shoulders.

Trini stood up abruptly. Kimberly looked up at her, frightened that Trini was leaving and very likely not coming back. But Trini was looking at her with a soft little smile.

“You really wanna show me that you’re sorry?” Trini asked, a glint in her eye.

Kimberly gave her a questioning look.

“Buy me a doughnut,” Trini said, her lips drawing into a smile at the same time as Kimberly’s.

***


End file.
